


Acting Captain

by 2x2verse (agent_florida)



Series: droneverse [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: (sort of), Aftercare, BDSM, Breathplay, Bulges and Nooks, Butt Plugs, Cock Rings, Coitus Interruptus, Come Inflation, Come as Lube, Deepthroating, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub, Domestic Bliss, Double Anal Penetration, Double Penetration, Double Penetration in One Hole, Fingerfucking, Hand Jobs, Kissing, Light Bondage, M/M, Multiple Orgasms, Non-Verbal, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay, Overstimulation, Pheromones, Praise Kink, Sex Toys, Spanking, Subspace, Synesthesia, Threesome, Threesome - M/M/M, Vaginal Sex, Vibrators, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 04:29:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4249320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_florida/pseuds/2x2verse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John’s here, it’s never a question of who leads and who follows. You and Dave would follow him to whatever end—have followed him to the end of the world, to your own deaths, and he has never led you astray. Even you, with your friendleader streak, are happy to step aside and let him captain this disaster of a ship.</p><p>But every captain has a second-in-command. If John is Kirk, then you’re his Spock, the weird pointy-eared alien freak who hides his emotions under a thin veneer of something else. And just like Spock to Kirk, when John’s absent or unavailable or just not in the mood, you’re his acting captain, his first officer.</p><p>--</p><p>John walks in on Dave and Karkat desperately humping like teenagers in the backseat of Dad's Cadillac. Dave and Karkat both get grounded. Sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Acting Captain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hero_Thief](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hero_Thief/gifts).



“Remind me again why you’re not doing your job?” you ask Dave, rolling up your sleeves and turning on the tap.

Dave lets out a long, low groan from where he’s still seated at the table, slumping forward and resting his face on his forearms. “Because you’re too good at yours. Seriously, Karks, what the fuck was that? I want it to get me pregnant so I can have its lovechild. Maybe it already knocked me up. My stomach is gurgling, not out of food but out of baby. Food baby.”

In the time it took Strider to monologue at you, you were able to get the water to run hot, lather up a dishrag, and start in on one of the dinner plates. “And yet it’s still your job to do the dishes. Nice fucking show of gratitude, twatwrinkle.”

“Gimme a min’.” It’s the best you’re likely to get out of him. You’ll take it. For now, you soap up some cutlery.

If someone had told you five sweeps ago that you would be this domesticated as an adult, you would have laughed in her face. If the follow-up was that Dave Strider and John Egbert were the ones that would tame you, your laughter would escalate into the fuckiest of yous, complete with a ninety-second no-breath expletive-sprinkled rant and including a garnish of two middle talons. Mostly it’s because you had no concept of this kind of happiness when you were six sweeps old. You were made for war, for strife, for survival—not for comfort.

And yet this settled life tends to agree with you. Finally, after the end of all things, in the wake of the destruction of an old universe and the creation of a new one, there is a place for someone like you in this world. This, right here, is where you belong. You’re needed and wanted and you’re useful and you contribute, and what you can’t do, the other two pick up your slack. It’s your job to cook. You have a job. It feels nice. And John does laundry, and Dave—well. “Ugh, fine,” he finally capitulates, letting out a melodramatic groan and pushing away from the table.

You hand him a clean dish, still dripping wet. Dave takes a towel and starts drying. The two of you fall into a rhythm so easily—like clockwork, like heartbeats. The silence between you is amicable. The elbows? Those are just teasing. The only thing missing is John, but he bowed out as soon as he finished eating—left something at the studio. Again. Even his forgetfulness is endearing. You can feel a smile threatening to dawn on your face.

And then the twisted-up corner of a dish towel whips you straight on the asscheek.

You let out a little undignified noise, stiffen your spine. You are holding a knife and you know Dave knows that. “Strider, if you even think about doing that again, I will walk out of this kitchen and make you cook tomorrow.”

“Sheesh,” Dave whistles through his teeth, affecting a bashful expression as he gets back to drying the good nonstick pans. “You flick one weenie with one wet towel and suddenly no one can take a joke.”

You pull the drain stop, run the water to rinse off your hands. “You’re still trying to get out of shit.”

“Who, me, officer?”

You flick water at his face.

He whips you with the towel again, you start passive-aggressively drying your hands on the front of his shirt, and his fingers loop through your belt loops, and your fingers catch on the neck of his shirt, and he kisses you.

Short, chaste little pecks at first, just as teasing as all the other contact between you. Little paps like he’s trying to placate you, only his palm is his lips and your face is your lips and he is hitting your lips with his lips and this made sense at some point, you’re sure of it. The smooches give way to kisses, longer, more purposeful, and Dave sets down his towel and you put your hands in his hair and Dave’s tongue threads between your teeth and.

He tastes like mint. You pull back. “What the fuck?” It comes out like you’re suffering from sudden-onset laryngitis, raspy and nearly a cough.

“What’s wrong, baby?” He tugs you closer by your belt loops until your hips are flush against his.

He knows exactly what’s wrong. You just caught him being a lazy piece of shit. “If you’re going to flash-step to brush your fucking teeth, the least you could do is turn back the clock so you do the dishes before I even start the water.”

“But that’s cheating,” Dave whines.

“Or bring back a breath mint for yours truly,” you point out, because the meal you made was more conducive to halitosis than Dave’s letting on.

Dave smirks. That’s the only word for the grin that starts wrapping around his face, not exactly a smile but a facial expression for the words ‘I win.’ “You’re so impatient.”

“Says the guy with all the time in the world,” you grumble, but you still let him kiss you again.

This time, when he licks his way into your mouth, there’s a pinwheel mint on the point of his tongue. Taking it from him makes you a little weak at the knees. Dave’s hands wrap around your hips to steady you, and you hold his head close as you pet along his tongue with your own. He smells like dish soap and curry and strawberry shampoo and fabric softener; you nudge your nose into his cheek and take a deep breath and take his mouth as thoroughly as you can.

It isn’t long before Dave has you backed against the cabinets, countertop biting into your ass and the weight of his body delightfully solid against yours. You thumb against Dave’s shades—never wants to be without them, uses them as a heads-up display so he wears them even when he’s indoors, sometimes even when he’s sleeping, the stupid fuck—but before you can actually pluck the offending eyewear away, Dave captchalogues them himself.

You hum contentedly into his mouth and continue to kiss him. It’s the equivalent of taking the phone off the hook. You’re about to get some, and it’s going to be awesome. “Hey,” you whisper against Dave’s lips when you have the audacity to pull back, leaving a trail of kisses along his jawline so you can speak straight into his ear, and then you lose whatever you were going to say. John doesn’t mind your stupid lines, but you know Dave will just laugh, and any mood the two of you have just been building will be lost if you say another word.

Dave takes the wheel and shifts into fifth. “If you’re looking to get fucked, I’d suggest not humping like desperate teenagers against the nearest solid surface,” he purrs, then licks the point of your ear. “Making out in the kitchen is so high school.”

Finally. “Bedroom?”

“Bedroom.”

You shove him and he laughs, smooching you erratically—lips, nose, eyebrow, chin—and tugging on your jeans to lead you to the back of the apartment. Not to your room, but to his. Not that it signifies anything, besides that he doesn’t want to get caught fucking on John’s bed when John isn’t even here. As soon as he has you past the threshold, he slams you up against the bare patch of wall between his door and his dresser.

It’s going to be _that_ kind of night, isn’t it.

Dave gets a smile full of shark teeth from you before he kisses you hard enough to bruise. His hands muss your hair. His tongue licks along the roof of your mouth. You reach down to grab at his ass, pull him close, and he makes this delightful yes-please noise that starts from the bottom of his lungs. His hands still shove your shoulders against the drywall. He thinks because he has a height advantage on you, he has you cornered.

You move your hands down, scoop them behind his knees, and lift.

“Oh,” Dave says, the sound somewhere between a prayer and a benediction. You know he loves this. You’re maybe twice as strong as he is, muscles wrapped differently around lighter tension-latticed bones, and although this isn’t easy, it’s certainly fucking impressive. Dave tucks his thighs around your waist and fists his hands in the front of your shirt, and you walk the both of you determinedly to his bed before you spill him onto it.

And the asshole pulls you down with him so you’re sprawled out over him, his ankles crossed behind your back. You couldn’t stop kissing him for the world. His mouth tastes so good, soft and wet and rich with human hormones, pouring red and pale and black all into you at once. Dave yanks and your shirt starts riding up. “Why do you wear long sleeves in the middle of summer,” he mutters between kisses.

It would be easier to get naked if your mouths weren’t magnetically attracted. “To keep you from drooling, you neanderthal remnant.” To get back at him, you bare his skin between waist and ribs and doodle your claws along his pale, pale skin.

“Fuck,” is Dave’s only retort, breathed heavy-hot straight into your mouth. You greedily swallow it down and help him get half-naked. Your prongtips go straight to the dark spots, the ones with the weird name that makes him giggle like a little girl to say but pretty much makes the words fall out of his head when you play with them. Just playing. Strum, roll, pinch, and Dave’s entire body moves with you. His hands claw at your sides, nails catching on the piercings through your grubscars. “Off, off,” he mutters.

For five seconds your world is black while your shirt gets stuck on the way off, and then. Then it’s him. Dave. Dave and you. You and him. And he wants you, and the evening June sun is stippled through the blinds and painting his skin with this incredible shade of peach and you just want to devour him when he looks like this. You’re going to, you’re going to put your mouth down—

“Oh my god,” comes from the doorway, and you and Dave both freeze.

Haha, whoops. It’s the other boyfriend, the one who probably feels like a third wheel right about now watching the two of you just rootin’ around aimlessly like teenagers in the backseat of a car. John’s just standing in the doorway of Dave’s bedroom, broad shoulders rested back against the frame and a hand in his pocket, nursing a Starbucks latte. With his thick black frames and two-day scruff, he’s a prime candidate for hipster, but the plaid shirt, rolled up at the elbows to display some impressive forearms, says lumberjack. He’s tall, broad, thick, and strong, just like a Washington pine—which is convenient, because you and Dave both constantly want to climb him like a tree. Body of a man, buck-toothed smile of a boy, earnestness of a child, perversity of an adult. You have no idea how it happened, whatever tornado went through Contradiction Village and swept up everything in its path to make this perfect asshole, but it did a hell of a job.

Dave snaps out of prongbeast-in-headlights mode first. “He started it—”

“—he kissed me first!”

“I leave for two seconds, and something stupid happens.”

“—this isn’t what it looks like, promise—”

“—get in or get out, don’t just stand there like a complete shitlick.”

John raises a thick eyebrow at that comment from you. “Didn’t hear you complaining last night,” is his blasé remark before he takes another sip of coffee.

All the blood in your body reroutes and goes straight to your face. You’re doing that thing, that thing where your blush comes up as pinprick freckles of candy red all across your nose and cheeks, and all you want to do is hide your face in your hands. Why does he have to bring up that he’s had his tongue in the vicinity of your butthole. As recently as eighteen hours ago. It was embarrassing enough the first time, when you kicked him in the chest out of a misguided reflex. Even the second time, when he had you so primed to blow that when he slurped back from your nook to your tailbone you spilled all over his face. It will never not be awkward for you, and here’s this—this— _turdbreath_ , thinking it’s cute how riled up you get, smirking at you for enjoying the hell out of it.

Dave, at least, stands up for you. “Says John ‘literally a meme’ Egbert, I cannot believe you showed up fifteen minutes late with Starbucks to a three-way makeout.” As if to spite him, his thighs get tighter around your hips.

“You’re grounded, by the way,” John says when his coffee comes down again. Of course, it’s hard to take him seriously when he’s smiling like that, buck teeth digging into his plush bottom lip like he has a horrible, terrible, no-good, very-bad, _perfect_ idea that he’s about to share with the two of you.

“Again?” is your immediate response.

Dave just rolls his eyes. “You’re not my real dad.”

“Strider,” John says, weight behind the word, gathering himself like a thundercloud and stepping into the room.

Dave swallows, so hard you can hear the click in his throat. Serves him right, that’s what he gets for bringing up the daddy thing. You don’t understand it—your culture’s lusus kink is the equivalent of human bestiality, which is to say you’d be cullbait for even thinking about it too loudly—but from what you’ve been able to hear, which is a lot considering, the two of them are totally into it. John is, at least, and Dave likes goading him with it. “Sorry,” Dave whispers, going limp under you.

“No, it’s okay,” John reassures him, “just don’t do it again.” His coffee lands with a thunk on Dave’s dresser. You can feel his eyes on you, assessing the situation, sizing you up. Strategizing. Your body is his battlefield. “You,” he says eventually, pointing his finger between your eyes. “Come,” crooking his finger, “now,” finger pointed at the floor.

“Fucking hell,” Dave says from under you, legs unfurling from where they were wrapped around you. “Jesus Christ and all three of his parents, I am literally dating a meme.”

You extricate yourself from Dave and coincidentally-on-purpose put your hand over his mouth to shove out of bed and get to where John is standing. Dave gets the point and keeps his mumbling to himself, even though he has to put both hands over his mouth to make himself shut up.

John’s smiling as you pad towards him. “Hey, c’mere, I’m not mad, I promise.” As soon as you’re in reach, he puts his hand under your chin, pulling you close so he can kiss you. Gentle, measured. Like he wants to push farther, but he’s holding himself back. You wish he wouldn’t. “Were you harassing him?” John asks you.

“He started it. I mean it. The lumpsquirting bugwart didn’t even do the dishes.” You hate how you sound like a surly child.

John hums a little. That’s his thinking noise. “Were you taking care of him?”

He has a point. When John’s here, it’s never a question of who leads and who follows. You and Dave would follow him to whatever end—have followed him to the end of the world, to your own deaths, and he has never led you astray. Even you, with your friendleader streak, are happy to step aside and let him captain this disaster of a ship.

But every captain has a second-in-command. If John is Kirk, then you’re his Spock, the weird pointy-eared alien freak who hides his emotions under a thin veneer of something else. And just like Spock to Kirk, when John’s absent or unavailable or just not in the mood, you’re his acting captain, his first officer. That’s what he’s asking you now. Not the face of the question, but whether you’ve been holding your own in the chain of command.

“Sir yes sir,” you mock him, and John chuckles, kissing you again. “I thought you left something at the studio.”

“I did.” Not that he has to explain himself to you, but he glitches the thing out of his sylladex anyway: a pair of prescription sunglasses. Yeah, kind of important. And really, really sweet. Sappy, saccharine sweet: those are the shades you got him for his birthday. “Short trip, with the transportalizer, so I got coffee on my way back. The two of you boink like bunnies.”

“I can hear you talking about me,” Dave complains from the direction of the bed.

John rolls his eyes. The gesture says everything: _this is the thanks I get from him_. You smile, twiddle your nose against his for an Eskimo kiss. “Stay,” he tells you softly.

“But—”

“I told you, you’re grounded.”

Oh, fuck. A fire kindles somewhere in the knot of your guts. This—this is grounded. Grounded is staying here and _watching_ while John steps to the bed. Puts one knee on the mattress, makes it dip to his weight. Bends down to kiss Dave, the two of them slotting together like they’ve always belonged together, the only two pieces in their interlocking puzzle. Damn it, they’re beautiful like this. John pushes Dave’s fringe off his face and you can see the flush already rising under Dave’s skin. Just from that little bit. And John’s not obscuring any of this. He knows exactly where your viewing angle is.

He’s showing off, the shithead, and he’s doing it on purpose, plucking the strings of your voyeurism kink and tuning you to fever pitch without even touching you.

John kisses Dave again, an unmistakable bite of hunger behind it this time, and you’re not sure who made that whimpering noise, you or Dave. How are they this devastatingly perfect together. Right here, right in front of you, the two most flawless things you ever made in this fucked-up cancerous universe, and you’re not even sure which one’s more beautiful, which one is your best creation. The study in bronze and brawn. The raw, unassuming grace of pale and gold. Or maybe it’s the way they move together, like they were made to.

Sometimes you still feel like you’re intruding on the two of them. You and Dave are stuck in the Schrodinger’s box of were-you-or-weren’t-you dating-at-one-point during The Game, not sure which timeline ended up alpha out of all of the hard and soft resets. But Dave and John—they’d been friends since before you ever trolled either of them, before you even knew their names. It’s a sacred ground upon which you fear to tread, because their connection somehow seems so intuitive, bone-deep without either of them realizing it. John is the lungs, Dave is the heart, Dave is the beat, John is the breath, and neither of them need you, you know this.

“It’s okay, Karkat,” John says, the clarity of his voice ringing through your self-doubt and making you feel stupid for standing here gazing at your navel when there are much prettier things to be looking at. You hadn’t even realized you were trembling until John pulled you back from wherever your mind took you—and he didn’t even need to look at you to know how far off the deep end you’d gone. “Tell him it’s okay.”

“You’re good, Vantas,” Dave says, voice harsh through a dry throat. “You’re doin’ good.” A sear of heat rolls down your spine and curls between your legs, making itself solidly at home. Holy shit, he knows. Both of them know. Just how to push your buttons.

“So Karkat’s already grounded,” John muses. “What am I going to do with you.” It’s so clearly not a question, but at the same time, you know there are thoughts whirling in his head and he’s trying his best to pick one out of the maelstrom.

“Don’t tell me I’m not getting laid.” With that glare, the way his eyes are set in his face, it almost sounds and looks like he wants to set John on fire with his mind.

“Mm, no,” John says, teasing up random tufts of Dave’s hair as he thinks. Dave’s turning to putty, you know it—he loves having head scritches. “How about—”

At this point in the conversation, John’s voice gets so quiet that you can’t hear it without stepping closer. Later he’ll tell you exactly what he’s saying, so you can reconstruct the conversation from memory, but for now his words are a mystery. At this point, he’ll tell you he said: “Do you remember that time, two months ago, when you got super drunk? Like super drunk.”

You can hear every word Dave says. “I apologized for breaking Rose’s lamp, I told you that.”

“No, not that,” John says, voice still too low for you to hear. Later you’ll know, but now—now your food blender is twisting in on itself, anxiety buzzing along your skin at being so close yet so _excluded_ from this intimate moment. “We started talking about sex—”

Dave interrupts him, loudly. “Oh, fuck, not this, I thought you forgot.”

John just continues. You’ll be thankful later for his explanation, but for now, you can’t hear when he murmurs, “and you said you wanted to get ganged up on, hard, by us.”

“John,” comes out weakly. Dave’s jeans are tighter than they were a few seconds ago.

“What if we did that right now,” comes across as nothing more than a wordless soothing sound to you. “What if we cuffed you to the bed and didn’t let you go for hours.”

The noises coming out of Dave are little more than dignified whimpers at this point. “Fuck—John—”

Still too quiet for you to hear, “what if he took his shame sticks and used them on you.” This time Dave’s whine is completely soundless; his eyes roll back in his head and a delicate shade of pink starts blooming on the tips of his ears. “What if he used you like a bucket and left you like that.” An anguished noise from Dave, so loud it tears you up inside, and he twists under John. Like he could get away. Like John would let him. Like he even wants to. “What if I edged you until you were crying.”

“John, I swear to god,” comes out loud and clear. Dave’s entire face is red.

“Yes?” John asks, just loud enough for you to pick up his whisper.

Dave nods so hard you think his head might fall off. “Fuck yes.”

“Good.” John drops one last kiss on Dave’s mouth, passes a hand through his hair, and then leaves him there. “Stay.” Like he would move—like he _could_ move, his body rigid as it is, afraid to so much as twitch if it’ll chafe his dick against the inside of his jeans too erotically.

Meanwhile, you’re on tenterhooks, and the closer John gets to you, the more you tremble. “What did you say, what were you saying,” you can’t handle not being included in things like this, you don’t know what John wants from you.

“Shh,” John says, and kisses you. This time his mouth tastes like Dave. You think you might pass out from the sudden throb through your crotch. “Hey. Look at me.” John’s eyes are bright and bewitchingly blue behind his glasses, twinkling with characteristic mischief. “Do you want to help me ruin Dave?”

“When has the answer to that question ever been no.” Your entire state of being is eighty percent reduce-Dave-to-his-composite-molecules at pretty much all times.

“Jeez, Karkat, no need to get cranky!” He nips at the tip of your nose and you kind of want to punch him in his infuriatingly handsome face for being so playful. “Just making sure you’re on board.”

Enthusiastic consent. Yes. That’s a thing. That he must have been asking for. (That he’ll confirm in a few hours, when he actually tells you the sweet salacious nothings he was whispering in Dave’s ear.) You jerk your head, down-up, and “yes” comes out almost too quietly, but John grins wider anyway.

“Okay. Okay, good.” John bites his lower lip. You surge forward and pluck it out from between his teeth with your own fangs, suck at it, and John takes in a harsh, urgent breath. Good. You want to bring this home for him, that this is really about to happen, that it’s all due to him. “Kitkat, get off, I need a favor.”

“What kind of favor? I can do you a favor for you.” So what that it comes out garbled? You’re about to have phenomenal sex, if the pheromones John’s projecting at you are any indication. Screw you for being a little excited.

John leans down to whisper at you this time. Dave shouldn’t be able to hear. Good. Leave him in the dark for once. He’s still obediently staying put on the bed, although you can tell he’s only two heartbeats from running his lovely mouth at any given moment. “Go to your coonblock,” John tells you. That he still uses troll terms with you, even though your planet is long gone in the trollocaust that followed your plus-one best ending, plucks at your pusher and winds you tighter. “Get whatever you want. We’ll use it all on him.”

Sufferer’s Disciple and all she holds dear. You’re weak at the knees from the rush to your head. John’s delegating to you, and you’re a little delirious with the sudden grant of power. “Whatever I want,” you repeat. He knows about some of the perverted shit you keep in there. Some, but not all. Your mind is already racing.

“Don’t get too excited.” John’s still grinning. This doesn’t mean anything good. “You only get two minutes.”

“Two minutes.” One hundred twenty seconds to fill your arms full of paraphernalia. “How will you know when time’s up?”

How is it possible for John to look shy and coy all at once. “Dave’s going to count.”

John’s going to be messing with him, isn’t he. Distracting him from the second hand constantly ticking in his head. “What if he loses track?”

“Best hope you don’t find out!” It’s not a threat, sounds too optimistic for that, but still, you find yourself agreeing with him. When John leaves your side you’re still paralyzed—he hasn’t told you to leave yet, you don’t know if your timer’s already going. “Go on, get going,” John chides you gently, papping you on the ass like you’re sports chums.

Yes. You need to go. John goes back to Dave on the bed, and you hear a vaguely yes noise coming from that direction (you can’t quite discern from whom), but you turn your back on it deliberately, thoughts churning. Your attention can’t linger on the two of them. You have a job to do. You have a place and you’re needed and you have a role to play and people are counting on you.

You stand in the doorway of your coonblock. You’re so tense you can hardly breathe. It would be easier if John were here. Or maybe it would be harder—he’s so fucking distracting, with his all of him.

Even now, you’re still slightly bewildered that you don’t need a recuperacoon on this new planet with these new defenses against the horrorterrors. Still, elevated sleep slats means there’s ample storage underneath for… well.

Kneeling, you pull out a long, shallow plastic container. Its contents rattle. This is the stash. When you open it, everything looks like it’s where you left it, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t strays that wandered off with John and Dave. They’re not shy about borrowing, but apparently they’re too bashful to buy their own. Given your mutation, you were certain that you’d never get any on Alternia—or at least, you weren’t willing to find out whether you’d get laid at the cost of your life.

Thus the collection of shame sticks. You don’t have time to curate them like you’d like tonight; you’re very aware of your heartbeat, the only way to keep track of how long you have for this particular errand. This, and this—maybe those? Oh, fuck, what about that? Definitely need some of those and a lot of that. Maybe John would like this—that’s a necessity for Dave—and maybe a few things for yourself, for them to use with you. Can you carry all of this? Do you have time to file it into your sylladex? Your new WYSIWYG modus is so much easier to use than the mess of code you had tangled up in there before, but it does take some time to even get to “what you see”…

No time. No time for any of that. You scoop it all up on your arms—it takes you a few tries, maybe you’re trying to take too much with you?—finally you balance everything, tucking it in under your chin and glitching in what you can’t quite hold. With your foot you close the box, kick it back underneath your mattress all cattywompus, and you end up stumbling over yourself in your haste to get back to where you’re needed.

When you get back to Dave’s room… you’re not sure what you expected, but it was probably exactly this. John’s solidly over Dave now, shirt half-unbuttoned and slumping off one of his shoulders; holding Dave’s hands above his head, both wrists circled in his thumb and forefinger; mouth at Dave’s neck, alternating between teeth and tongue to leave a sucking bruise just to the left of his adam’s apple; one hand, oh. One hand possessively at Dave’s crotch while Dave pushes his hips into the contact, even as John’s fingers hunt for his hard-on and crush it against his leg.

Yeah, they don’t need you. They look plenty good here. They’re gods. The elements bend to their will. You? You’re just a dumb dead kid in stupid jammies. Dave gasps, pushes his everything pliant into John’s capable creative hands, and John starts unbuttoning Dave’s jeans, reaches in like he owns it. Which he does. It all belongs to him. You could stay, you could watch, but it hurts, it’s physically _painful_ to know that you’re a third wheel for the two of them, an unnecessary intermediary between boss and subordinate, an ashen trefoil with nowhere to go in a scarlet heart.

You turn to leave. John snaps his head up, looks to you, and you’re pinned in place, feeling guilty as hell and trying to squirm away. But John smiles, and the expression reaches his eyes. “Dave lost count,” he tells you.

“For the love of the Mother Grub and her forgotten seventh sphincter.” You roll your eyes. “You had one job. _One fucking job_ , Strider.” He fucked up. He fucked up hard. Then again, because his fuckup affects your performance, you’re not sure whether John thinks _you_ fucked up or not. Only one way to find out, really. “Where do I—”

“Foot of the bed—do not move, David Benjamin Strider, or so help me I will tie you up and gag you and leave you in the corner of the room while Karkat and I enjoy ourselves.”

“I won’t move,” Dave promises. You also hear what he does not promise: to stay quiet. He’s going to be talking again. The more he runs his mouth the more you want to cram things in it. Like your bulge. Whoa, there goes the crotch-throb again. Thank whatever higher power there is that your troll junk isn’t out yet, or you’d have stained your pants by now.

John’s propping himself away from Dave, twisting towards you. You approach, dumping your bounty where John told you to. The two of you work together to align every implement neatly, and when you look at it like that, it’s kind of overkill, but you panicked and you didn’t want to fuck up and you did good, right? There’s no need for three bullet vibes, but they’re all here anyway, wires slightly tangled to their remotes. Two different vibrators: one is white, slimmer, but more powerful, with settings from constant light buzz to deep rhythmic pulses to rhythmless oscillations and everything in between; the other is significantly thicker, more realistic but still a little xeno for human taste, a tapered shape with a more-pointed tip and distinctly seadweller ridges along the sides. Four plugs, graduated in size, and one of them you know for sure is John’s favorite. A leather-and-snap device that wraps around the base of a human bulge to keep it hard, or at least that’s what the diagrams seemed to be telling you. A riding crop—just in case. Cleave gag and ball gag, though you hope John doesn’t go there, you like all the sass that falls out of Strider’s cockholster when he’s hopelessly aroused. Cuffs—wrist, ankle, thigh, and assorted carabiners to hook them all together. A spreader bar. And, of course, condoms and lube for garnish. John’s a stickler, you know he has some on his person at all times _for reasons, okay_ , and then he’ll get all embarrassed that you mentioned it, but it’s always best to be prepared. Just in case he was counting on you for this, too.

“Jeez.” John’s eyes are darting all along the display. Dave’s staring too, trying to act like he’s not, but without the shades his eyes give him away. They’re wide, pupils blown, blond eyelashes catching a few last glimmers of sunlight, and the set of his eyebrows tells you that he knows he’s in for it bigtime now. “Shit, Karkat, this is,” John says, “wow, this is a lot, so much to work with, you did so good, this is perfect—”

You seize up at the word. At one point you had to sit the two of them down and explain them a thing, and that thing is, sometimes when you hear their voices, you get an exquisite kind of synesthesia. Their words make physical sensations bloom on your body. Sometimes they grip you around the chest, sometimes they tingle in your fingers, sometimes they ring in your ears. But the word _perfect_ , coming from John—that word has always felt like a knife gently fucking itself between the tines of the cage surrounding your atmosphere aspirators, like it’s prying away your grubscars to see your insides underneath. And fuck if you don’t _like it there_ , you want to hear that word over and over, you want it to kill you slowly with every saying, can’t get enough of it even as it pains you to listen to it.

John brings you back to yourself, grabbing your face to haul you close so he can push his tongue into your mouth. God he tastes good, tastes like he’s rearing for a fuck, and you kiss him back just as hungrily. John has to push you away to get a word in edgewise. “Pants down, hands in the circle.”

The circle. The one Dave drew on the wall just next to his desk in Sharpie, helpfully annotated with _slam head here repeat as needed_. “What, why?”

“I told you, Dave lost count. I don’t know how long you took.” Your dread must show on your face; John paps it gently, presses his forehead against yours in reassurance. “I’m not mad, just disappointed—”

“Fucking Christ, Egbert, stop using Tumblr daddy-dom memes, I’m losing my boner.”

“If you don’t want this, go fuck yourself,” John shoots back. Dave doesn’t move. Just like you knew he wouldn’t. “You did a good job, Karkat, okay? This isn’t about that.”

“Dave fucked up, so now I’m paying for it?” That doesn’t make you feel any better. You pull away from John, unbuttoning your pants and facing the wall.

One palm slaps into the circle. The other shoves your jeans down around your knees, boxers still around your hips. “Off, Karkat. All of it.” Holy shit. That’s his _or else_ tone, and you’ve never liked what’s on the other end of the else. The authoritarian intonation has your hair standing on end, a buzz building at the base of your horns.

If this’ll make him happy, if it’ll make him keep talking like that, low and gritty and filthy with all the thoughts he never says, you’ll do it. You’ll do it, you’ll bite through your own lip and bear it, and your fangs are already denting your skin as you shove down your underwear. Fine. There. You’re naked. John’s fully clothed and Dave still has his pants on and you’re just over here bare as the day you hatched.

God, you already feel swollen, and you don’t want to know where John’s eyes are lingering right now. Cold seeps into the wet places between your legs. John stands, walks to you. Puts a large, warm hand over both of yours, leans over to whisper in your ear. “In.” What? “Breathe in, and hold.”

Right. You fill your atmosphere aspirators, down right to the bottom, and your mutated ribs try to flutter like they’re gills, like they could help. And you close your eyes, and wait—not long, as it turns out. Crack, open-handed on one asscheek, and you squeeze your eyes shut so hard it hurts and let out a startled “agh!” Crack again, an echo of the first one, on the other side, perfectly matched, and the rest of your breath falls out as a long, low “fuck!”

“That’s it,” John says, quiet and warm. “That’s all, just two for you, you did good, Karkat, I’m proud of you.” Heat swims under your skin as John lays sweet, chaste kisses up the column of your throat, against the side of your face.

He pulls away and there’s still a simmer lingering where he spanked you. God, so hard it’s just now rebounding up from your bones, there has to be two perfect handprints on your ass by now, and you can feel the outline of each of them, searing bright against the boundaries of your body. “Fucking _ow_ , assprince, the hell was that for?”

“I gave you two minutes, so I gave you two. Do you want more?” John turns back to you, grinning. Teasing.

“No, I’m _fine_ ,” you tell him sarcastically. “Give all my extra to Dave.” You push off the wall. Just standing up straight has the memory of his hands as fire against your skin. Your bulge wants to crawl out. Why.

When you turn back around, John’s back on the bed. “You too, Dave—don’t look at me like that, you know what you did.”

“And whose fault is that, huh?” Dave tries to scowl, but the overall effect, what with him shimmying out of his skinny jeans, is pathetic. Your small grinchy red-as-heresy concupiscent heart grows three sizes. So does your wriggly, when you realize that he hasn’t been wearing underwear and now his bulge is all flopping out and he’s hard already, holy fuck, he’s actually looking forward to his spanking.

John rolls his eyes. “Assume the position.”

“How are you still dressed,” Dave grumbles, but he still does as ordered. Something you’ve been wondering yourself, but you don’t have the confidence to sass John back like Dave does. John’s sitting at the side of the bed, thighs slightly spread, and Dave’s hips go right between them as Dave slings himself across John’s lap. “Not in the face,” he deadpans, clasping his hands in prayer position above his head.

John shoves his shirtsleeves back up his arms, then starts petting along Dave’s back. His back piece is so pretty—a mixture of skeleton and steampunk, a strict medical representation of his vertebrae and ribs with a clockwork heart hidden underneath, all of it in stark red and black against such pale skin. He’s gorgeous and it’s not fair. John hasn’t even told you you can touch, or you’d be running your fingers through his hair so it wouldn’t stick to his forehead. “Go ahead, Karkat,” and your claws immediately dance along his scalp, Dave’s hips going tight to John’s thighs. “Breathe,” John tells Dave, and then it starts.

One, sharp popping smack ringing in your ears, and color’s already rising to Dave’s skin. Dave closes his eyes and says nothing. A second, just as measured and well-aimed, and Dave bites his lip—not a sound. You kneel down, get on his level, press your forehead to his in a weak measure of reassurance. A third, out of rhythm with the first, more of a swat than a thick slap, and you kiss Dave’s nose as the rest of his held breath leaves him with a rush.

“Good,” John reassures him. “How many?”

“Fuck, am I supposed to count them?” Dave’s voice is tight. “Do you want me to go all Oliver Twist on this bitch? Please, sir, may I have—” _crack_ — “another, Mary mother of God that _fucking hurts!_ ”

“How many?” John asks again, hand hovering high in the air.

“That was four— _five six seven_ , oh fuck,” in quick succession, spaced so Dave can’t predict which one’s going to land next. Dave’s voice breaks on the last word, and you hold his face gently in your hands, ignoring the wet on your fingers.

John holds his hand back. “Three more. Karkat?”

“Mmhmm.” Seems a reasonable enough response.

“Would you do the honors?”

“The what.” This isn’t your job, this is John’s job.

John shrugs. His spanking hand comes down on Dave’s ass, but gently. Massaging in the hurt. Dave whimpers. “I just thought—you don’t have to, but you said he started it, and he did forget, and he didn’t even do the dishes tonight, so.”

Three things. Three more for an even ten. “I can do it.” You won’t like it, but you’ll do it. A swift kiss to Dave’s open panting mouth, then you stand to deliver. Your bulge immediately makes a move for Dave’s lips and you have to cup a hand over it to stop it; it knots in on itself instead. You’ve never held this much power before and you’re not really sure what to do with it.

“You’ll do fine,” John tells you, like you were thinking loud enough for him to hear your self-doubt. “Breathe in.” Not to you—to Dave.

Fuck. His skin is already raw-red. You don’t want to hurt him, but given how he’s squirming against John’s lap, he’s probably trying to chafe his dick on John’s pants just to get some friction. Desperate enough to rut like a beast. Just from getting hit. You take a deep breath yourself, raise your hand—

You think your hand might sting more than Dave’s skin at the impact. You give him three, embarrassingly imprecise and probably too light, but by the end he sighs it all out and relaxes across John’s legs, jelly-limbed and sated. “You did good,” John says. “Both of you, you did so good—stop humping my leg, Dave!”

“I wasn’t humping your leg,” Dave lies. John fists his hand in Dave’s hair, wrenches his head back so you can see the stark jut of his adam’s apple, and he gives, voice mangled. “I’ll stop humping your leg.”

“I can’t take you two anywhere,” John laments. “Off, you—stop being such a limp noodle, Dave, I know you can move yourself.”

“I totally _can_ ,” Dave points out. He still doesn’t move on his own. It takes you and John to get him back to where he was, flat on his back on the bed. “So, uh.” It’s so endearing to watch him try to stay cool when you know he’s trying to predict what you and John will get up to next. “What now?”

“I don’t know,” John says, and looks to you. “What do you think, Karkat? A plug, or a vibe?”

He’s asking for your opinion. Shit. You owe him an answer—a real one, not just _anything goes, you’re in charge_. “You mean, which one do you think he’ll prefer?”

“No, which one are we going to use _first_.” His smile could impregnate a nun.

A sear runs down your torso column and pools with all the other heat in your groin. When he said ruin, he meant _obliterate_. And you are totally on his wavelength. “This one,” you say, pointing to the white vibrator. “This one for sure, then whatever you want.”

“Exactly what I was thinking.” John starts unbuttoning his shirt. An involuntary _hng_ noise comes at him in stereo, you and Dave both involuntarily vocalizing just exactly how you feel about the eighth natural wonder of the world that is John Egbert. John tosses his shirt to the side. “Hey, hand me th—”

He doesn’t have to finish his sentence; you hand off the wrist cuffs to him like you’re marathon runners. “Heck yes, mammafricker,” Dave says, and he even cooperates while John gets the leather wraps around his wrists, clips the carabiner together behind a bar in his headboard.

While John’s at work there, you take the matching leather ring and snap it snug right around the base of Dave’s cock. “Good idea,” John says. The words linger as sparks under your fingertips, that strange synesthesia at work again.

Dave’s dick pulses once you’re done manhandling it. (Trollhandling?) “Holy shit, you weren’t kidding.”

“Why would I joke around about that?” John dips down, smooches Dave. It turns into two, then three, then a lingering smear. “Karkat, I need the—”

Another perfect handoff—pressing the lube into John’s hand this time, the hand still warm from nine perfect ass-slaps. John has to be the one to do this part. You kind of hate that. After all this time, you still can’t get your fingers in Dave without clawing him to shreds, no matter how meticulously trimmed you keep your nails. You’d never forgive yourself for hurting him like that. But still, if John’s going to be doing that, you can think of a way to keep yourself occupied. “Does that mean I can—”

“Fucking _please_ ,” Dave begs for you.

“Yes—but no bucking, Dave, do you understand?”

Dave nods frantically. He then immediately thrusts his hips into the air as John’s lube-slick fingers search along the cleft of his ass. “It’s cold!”

“Cowboy up,” you tell him.

“If you’re going to complain, I can always stop—”

“No, don’t, John, god,” comes out of Dave’s mouth, harsh and panicked. “I just—I’m sorry, I won’t—”

“Sheesh. What a baby.” John takes his hand away. “I think I can fix this, though.”

And he reaches back and puts his cold, wet, slimy hand right on your knotted bulge.

It doesn’t stay there for long, passing further back, between your legs where you’re dripping hot. John plays freezing fingers along the plumped folds of your nook and it’s like your body tries to melt into his hand, gushing out a dribble of pre-mat just for him. You push your hips forward—if that’s what he wants, if he wants to use your pre as lube so Dave will stop complaining about it being cold, then you really wouldn’t fucking mind if he fingered you right now, you’re dying for a little relief—

You’re not getting it now. As soon as John’s hand is dripping translucent red, he takes it away, and you make a little grieving noise as it goes back to work on Dave. “Better?”

“Yeah,” Dave breathes out. The tail end of that sigh trails off into a satisfied moan as John’s fingers hone in again. You wish you could see a little better. You wish you could just do it. Dave always sounds amazing when John’s working on him like this, warbles of notes tumbling out of him as John plays him like a piano. You’ve been on the receiving end of that dexterity—in twice as many ways as Dave, because stupid humans don’t have nooks with their bulges—but you’ve never been able to give him that. And for the space of maybe fifteen seconds, you’re angry, the feeling flowing through you like lava through your veins.

“Karkat.” John’s voice brings you back from an outright eruption. “Go ahead.”

Right. You have a job to do. Dave gets to lie there and get wrecked, John’s working him open, and you—you lean down and get your tongue on the underside of Dave’s cock, licking from ring to head in an extended slurp.

You love giving head. Sure, for trolls it’s a wicked taboo, having your fangs anywhere near the sensitives of someone you have a mating fondness for is kind of super fucked up and you have to be into some kinky shit to suggest it in the first place. But humans? Apparently humans do this all the time. Foreplay, main act, doing a favor, whatever. They sure do love their oral sex. And you’re only too happy to play along. Human nook, human bulge, you don’t care, it’s all amazing. Their pre-mat basically tastes like an explosion of pheromones across your tongue.

You like Dave’s dick in particular. First of all, after so long, his hormone profile is so synced with yours that it’s like he’s your personal flavor of primo sticky catnip. You lick off the precum beading at the tip and start chirring without meaning to, holy shit he tastes so good. And then there’s the fact that this bulge simply isn’t trollish: it’s broad at the tip and the same thickness all the way down, and there’s this bit of skin near the top that’s actually really fucking fun to play with. You run the tip of your tongue between Dave’s foreskin and his frenum and you hear him pulling the sheets into his fists so he’ll keep from thrusting into your mouth.

Mostly, there’s still some part of you that’s just so _thrilled_ to be here, with these two, doing this. Alive. Having sex. Not culled. Not called a freak and a mutant and a whore. It took a long time to quiet all the cultural impulses telling you to keep your sex drive to yourself. It took even longer to tell the self-shaming parts of your brain to shut the fuck up for once when you were enjoying yourself—you don’t appreciate intrusive thoughts consisting of the words “slut” and “whore.” You don’t even like it from John, the guy whose voice can pretty much instantly get you to unsheathe. You like what he says now, though, little murmurs of “good, you’re doing so good,” bestowed indiscriminately on both you and Dave. You bask in it.

Besides, it’s just _nice_ to have Dave in your mouth. Pursing your lips, scraping your hard then soft palate, the insistent pulse of him thrusting thick across your tongue. John does something that twists his wrist in your peripheral vision and Dave makes a noise like he’s being murdered; more precum drips down your throat. You draw back, lap it up, then bob right back down again, tip of your tongue tracing a vein as you go.

“Okay?” John asks you. _Perfect,_ you think, but you can’t really answer him with your mouth full. You give him the okay sign instead. “Breathe—breathe deep,” he insists, and you take a shaky breath through your sniffnodes.

John pushes down on your head. Dave’s cock slips into your throat. Your atmosphere aspirators are already burning. You try to swallow and succeed in making a pornographic gagging noise, but John doesn’t let up, just holds you down with a hand on one of your horns. Your entire body feels like radio static as you de-oxygenate. John won’t let you suffocate—if push comes to shove, he can always breathe life back into you with his windy thing—but your pusher still thumps out a panicked beat, because what if this is the time, what if now is when he misjudges what you’re capable of, your vision goes more and more tunneled with every second—

John yanks up and Dave’s dick slips out of your mouth with several obnoxious strings of spittle still connecting him to your lips. You take in air like a thirsty man drinking from a desert oasis. “Shh, that was great, you did great, I’m so proud of you,” he murmurs, thumbing at one of your horns, and the small sensation resonates through you even as the words force your pumpbiscuit into transient idiopathic arrhythmia.

Dave is twisting under both of you. “Damn it, John, what’s your fucking damage?”

Oh. Because there’s nothing up his ass, John wrenching his fingers out, and no one on his dick. “Greedy prick.” His stomach hollows, like the words hit him right in the solar plexus. “Just be patient, you have all the time in the wh _hhh_ —”

John’s hand, the one not on your horns, is back down between your legs. He completely ignores your bulge, the complete tease, and goes straight for your folds again. His hand is perfectly warm against the molten heat of you, and his fingertips search for your entrance by feel. When you nudge your hips closer, one slips against—then in.

“Fuck, John, that’s—” slow slide, ease past, slick and solid. Your nook promptly drools out another dump of pre right into his palm, like you’re nothing more than a lube dispenser. His fingertip rubs at the sensitive front wall and you make a rasping noise like if a cricket could moan.

And then he leaves you bereft, right when it was getting good. Fuck him. You wish you had better stamina, because you shouldn’t be that close to spilling from just a little teasing, but you also wish he wouldn’t fucking tease in the first place. He wouldn’t be John if he didn’t tease you, though. “Pass me the—”

Done. Tag-teamed like an actual baton this time, you slap the white vibrator into his pre-filled palm with a wet squelch. “Yes, yes yes yes,” Dave hisses, and he pulls at his cuffs like he could get out of them and get closer to what’s about to happen.

What’s happening. John works in a way you can’t see, but you know when it’s breaching Dave, because Dave’s eyelashes flutter like little moth’s wings in the gathering dark. “Go easy on him,” you say, though you don’t expect John to listen to you.

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” John says, angling the vibrator forward and turning it on the lowest setting.

Dave spasms. His back arches away from the bed, like his spine’s being strung into a strongbow, and his thighs shake. “Oh, _fuck_ ,” he whispers, the tone like he’s praying.

John laughs. That’s a kind word for the sound that came out of him—it’s more like a cackle, a crow of victory. “Oh, man, Karkat, you should try this, come here and play with it.”

“But I—”

“It’s okay, Karkat.” John takes one of your hands, guides it to the vibrator.

Yes. Okay. You can do this. You’d feel fine doing it if it were just you and Dave fucking around, but with John here, the dynamic is totally different. He’s so clearly in control, and you always feel like you have to defer, ask for permission. But here, this—this is okay. This is good. You slide the vibe further into Dave and watch his eyes roll back in his head. “Can I turn it up?”

“Whatever you want.” While you’re concentrating on your own movements, John’s hand gets back into your field of view, closing around Dave’s cock, slick from your lube and spit. That grasp slides up slow from base to tip, and Dave’s hips try to follow the movement.

Which means you can nudge the vibe even deeper, which means Dave makes a shaky “hah” noise as it seats as far as it’ll go. “Shit, John, that’s—hhh, _Vantas_ —”

The dial at the bottom of the vibrator controls the settings. There’s more than twenty. In scuttlebuggy metaphors, you take it from zero to sixty in three-point-five; in rockstar terms, you turn it up to eleven. Twisting the dial makes the vibe start giving long, shuddering pulses starting at a teasing barely-there buzz all the way up to a bone-shaking strength and then straight back down again, the interval set to a nice, gentle cadence—a sine wave of sensation. The buildup is so slow that Dave doesn’t quite know how to modulate his voice to keep from giving away how fucking into it he is. By the time it’s at its most intense, he’s practically yodeling.

“Jeez.” John’s hand keeps teasing at Dave’s cock, because he can be evil when he puts his mind to it. “What setting is that?”

“Thirteen, I think.” Dave takes in these shuddering gulps of breath under you when the sine wave hits a low point, then tries to keep his mouth shut as it ramps back up again.

John’s hand leaves again. “I’ll have to remember that. Hey, what about seventeen?”

“You think he’s ready for seventeen?”

“I’m fucking—hhahh, hhahh—ready as _shit_ for seventeen,” Dave comments unhelpfully—he doesn’t even know which setting seventeen is. Still, he seems eager to prove himself, even as his dick drools into a swiftly-growing puddle on his hollowed-tense stomach.

John snickers. “Give it to him, then.”

You twiddle the dial on the vibrator and Dave fucking _screams_.

You like seventeen. Dave _loves_ seventeen. It’s the equivalent of having a subwoofer under the chair he’s sitting on while some quality house-trance is pumping through the speakers, except up his ass and the second star to the right. It’s a heavy, insistent throb, a bass beat with the perfect tempo, not too slow so he can anticipate and prepare for the next vibration but not so fast that it’ll push him to the edge. Like a heartbeat, if a heartbeat was a deep, solid thrum emanating from perfect penetration.

His breathing’s coming shallow. You can work with this. Slowly, gently, you ease the vibe out. Slide it back in, and Dave makes a broken “ahahahaha” sound that might be laughing or might be crying or might be both. There’s a clacking noise up at the headboard where he’s moving his hands so he can hold onto something; the tendons of his wrists stand out in sharp relief against his cuffs as he tries to find something that’ll tether him to reality.

Shallow movements. Not enough to overwhelm him. In the meantime, you’ve been so focused on Dave that you lost track of where John was, what he was doing. He’s at your side now, teeth grazing against your shoulder as he reaches down. Skims a palm down your front, reaches the tangle of your bulge, and grasps at it. A warning trill starts in your throat, then dies down as he massages at it instead. “Watch it,” you say instead, voice still more growl than anything.

“Hm,” John says, and shifts so he can look at you better. Then he pokes at the sensitive tip of your tied-up bulge and it writhes against itself, sending a spike of sensation right up your spine to fizzle out somewhere in your thinkpan as a series of fireworks. “This’ll be interesting.”

“What?”

“I don’t think there’s a badge for knot- _un_ tying.” John prods at the tip again, pushes it through a loop.

Oh, right. That boyhood activity he was talking about, the one that, as it turns out, didn’t have anything to do with training children to be advance warriors in a raiding party. John untangles another knot, and you try to concentrate on not letting the tip of your bulge strangle his fingers. All of your mental energy right now is focused on Dave—the pad of your thumb tracing the ridge girding the backside of his dick, pressing it against his stomach, and he fucks against the feel of it like he could try to ride the vibrator you’re still gently fucking into him. “Why are you,” you try to ask, but it comes out as Alternian.

John still manages to pick up that it’s a question. Probably your eyebrows. Also your incoherence, and the upward lilt at the end. “I want you to try a thing,” he says, and then leans in to whisper. Dave’s vaguely moaning with every breath, concentrating too hard on chasing down every bit of pleasure you’re feeding him, so there’s no chance he’ll hear this. “I want to see if you can wrap your bulge around that thing and get both of them inside him.”

A little jet of slurry slips out the tip of your bulge and trickles down John’s fingers. You have, apparently, reached the leaky-faucet phase of being really fucking turned on. “You need to get an inspecterrorist to—to check out your thinkmeats,” you stutter, because John’s _still_ trying to untangle your bulge. There’s only one knot left in it; the rest is spooled around his hand, trying to get as much contact as it can. “You- _hoo_ might be irreparably ill with a wasting disease called t-t-terminal stupidity. Are you out of your f _ffffffuck_ ing mind?”

“Come on, Karkat, I think he’ll like it!” John tries to persuade you.

Dave picks up on the conversation this time. “Like what, what’s going on, tell me, ah _fuck_ , not close enough—”

Slowly, gently, you ease the vibrator out of Dave, turning it off as you go. Dave’s making vaguely distressed noises. “Get over it. No one’s ever died from delayed gratification.” You’d know better than anyone. The vibe slips out eventually, and it feels heavier in your hand now. This _and_ your bulge? What if it doesn’t work? Fuck, what if you hurt Dave because he has too much pride to tell you to stop?

John’s unencumbered hand takes yours and guides the vibrator to your own crotch, to what Dave affectionately calls your front taint. T’ain’t your bulge and t’ain’t your nook, just this patch of sensitive skin that doesn’t get played with a whole lot. The last cramp in your bulge gets smoothed out, and then John starts dragging his hand away. “Come on, work with me,” like he has to baby-talk it, but eventually the dumb thing gets the idea—with a lot of cognitive drain on your end, because it’s hard to control the damn thing when it just wants to be inside something right the fuck now.

Bulges are a good deal better than human cocks, in your opinion, but they’re still silly and stupid when you get right down to it. They can stretch out, long and thin tapers, or they can squat themselves down for girth. Your species isn’t built for thrusting as much as it’s built for thrashing. And wiggling, and twisting. When they’re feeling shy they retreat into the bone part of it, the sheath-pocket that keeps it safe from the worst of a groin impact. Seadweller bulges have these nice ripple-fins on the side and feeler-tips that make it look like a goddamn cuttlefish. Yours has a ripple, not quite to fin protrusion, because you’re a fucking freak and you don’t get to have nice things like a perfectly normal bulge. The first thing John and Dave wanted to know about it was whether you could control it. You still don’t know how to answer that question. It’s a heat-seeking muscle; it wants to crawl in somewhere warm and wet and start getting loads of slurry squeezed out of it, as much as it’s stimulating slurry production itself. But once it’s in there, you know how to move with it. It’s the same as the human instinct to move the hips, except your concentration is aimed differently.

Your bulge gets the idea eventually. It thins out, sliding like wet silk strands against John’s fingers as he winds you around the vibe instead, stretching you out as thin as you’ll go. By the end, you’re threaded around it, candy-red in stark contrast to white, your pre-mat leaving the surface a shiny pink. For a little while, John doesn’t want to let go, not convinced you have it under control. It feels even heavier when you grip it like this. Bulges weren’t evolved to be fully prehensile, but it’s counterbalanced against your gap. “Got it?”

“Fuck off.” John takes his hand away from your junk and starts rearranging Dave to his liking—thighs spread. Glory be, he looks like a _whore_ like this, legs open and welcoming you, halo of white-blond hair on the pillow making him the most perverse angel any world has ever seen. A visible pulse runs from base to tip of your bulge. You get to fuck this. You get to fuck _him_. “Brace for impact,” you snarl, feral, and start a slow push in.

It’s weird—the different way his body drags against you when you’re wrapped around something else. It electrifies you. Dave not only invites you in, but demands more, not with words or even sounds (though he’s full of those) but with his heels digging into your ass like he could literally spur you on. Fuck, and his body just _takes_ it, takes it so well, and John might even be telling him that between the smattering of kisses he’s laying on Dave’s face, the way he’s brushing Dave’s sweat-matted hair away from his forehead.

By the time you’re flush with him, you’re shaking. So is he. It’s tight, in a way you’re not used to. No room to thrash. Your bulge cramps around the vibrator. It’s not even turned on and you’re both still getting wrecked by it. And it forces you to move differently, too. A few seconds to breathe and then you’re holding yourself up by locking your elbows and your thighs work in a way evolution didn’t account for when your hips draw back and you slip out and then just as suddenly _slam_ back in.

Dave makes a sound like he’s being eviscerated. John’s mouth is just under Dave’s jaw, marking him with another spectacular hickey. What a great idea. You nuzzle your face into the joinder of throat and collarbone, make another stuttering thrust, and suck at his skin through your teeth.

It gets easier every time. Dave’s predicting how you’ll move, moving with you instead of against you—or against you instead of with you? Away on the downstroke, towards on the upstroke, making every movement twice as powerful with half the effort. Hearts hammering at a synchronized 120 BPM—double time. And then John reaches down, fumbling, to where your bodies are joined.

And turns on the fucking vibrator.

Set at seventeen.

Fireworks go off somewhere between your horns and your eyelids.

Every shudder has to go through you, through your _bulge_ , before Dave can feel it. The bone-shaking throb is right up against your skeleton, too, thrumming through the floor of your gutcradle. You’re fucking incapacitated. So is Dave. “Don’t stop moving, jeez!” John chides you.

You can’t even _start_. This is so overpoweringly good that it nearly makes you sick with sensation. You shove as hard as you can, bury yourself in Dave as deep as you’ll go, and your pulse travels along your bulge in rings of ripples that fatten all the way up. Your self-control is on the fritz already; you know there’s slurry leaking out of you into Dave, leaking out between your legs. And the painstaking genocide of your fragile self-esteem is Dave’s swan song; beautiful birdlike noises are pouring out of his mouth just like material is pouring out of you.

Move, John said. You can move. You’ll move in the only way you know how. Slowly, _excruciatingly_ , you start to un-twist your bulge from around the vibe. Every millimeter you gain, Dave gasps as you brush up against something or another. When you slick the length of your bulge past that one patch to the front, he sounds like he might dissolve. And everything’s so tight, and he clings to you everywhere, you can feel his heartbeat hammering around you. Even when your bulge is straight you don’t stop, this time wrapping around in the other direction.

Dave’s hands are shaking. John threads his fingers through one of them, but you look away once you realize John’s thumb is checking Dave’s pulse. That’s too intimate for you to see. “Karkat,” he’s yelling out, “Karkat, fuck, Karkat, I’m, fuck, wanna, god, so fucking close, I can’t, I can’t, fuck—” and his cock bobs with one of your sideways shuffles, more precum stringing onto his stomach.

“Close?” John asks. You and Dave both make anguished assent sounds. But it’s you John reaches for. He pulls you close by the hair, his hand around your horn—deliberately, has to be, because he squeezes just right for a buzz to start in your brain. “Use him,” he orders—gritty and low, impossible to disobey.

Your body listens. Inside Dave, your bulge cramps, and a more purposeful surge of material floods through it. Your nook clenches around nothing; it hurts, almost like you closed down around one of Dave’s swords, and the pain bites through you, an urgent counterpoint to the flood of your release. For maybe a blissful thirty seconds your world narrows to your first fill of the night—and not even into a bucket, god, this is cullable, this is _blasphemy_ , and the heresy of it lights a fire in your little mutant rebel spade and makes it go on even longer.

It’s not much by troll standards, but by human standards it’s sizeable enough. When trolls aren’t in season (and without drones or a way to repopulate, there’s no reason to be), contributions are ‘negligible,’ measured in cups rather than gallons. It’s enough to fill John’s cupped hands, probably. Still, this one was small, even by dry-run measurements, and you know you’ll have to express again tonight.

Dave twists under you, desperate, even as the aftershocks (and the shocks of the vibrator) run their course. “Fuck, I’m, fuck, John, take it off, I, I’m, I want—”

“Ease,” John murmurs at you. Not too much too fast. He at least turns the vibe off while he helps with extrication—it’s already messy enough, thanks. But even as you’re uncramping, John’s holding his fingers tight against Dave’s entrance. “Hold. I said _hold it_. Karkat, pass the—no, not the black one, the red one—”

A plug. He did imply he’d use both, but you’d never thought—your slurry. Still in Dave. With numb fingers you pass the implement into John’s hand, and the second you’re fully out, he’s pressing it back in. “You fucking asshole, I just, I was so, I need—”

“Shh,” John whispers condescendingly. Dave’s voice cracks on what would be a scream, if he still had the energy, as the plug moves into position—digging right into his sweet spot, by the sound of it.

John is an evil motherfucker. He even looks shyly smug about the whole thing. Because just as much as human cum is an aphrodisiac to trolls, troll material seems to do the same thing to humans. Plugging your swill in Dave will just make his entire everything oversensitive; you can already see his chest nubs pebbling, skin prickling into gooseflesh. And the fact that John seems insistent on edging him won’t help.

Meanwhile, you feel like you just got stabbed in your nook. Your seedflaps are spasming, because for all you just released, they have nothing to show for it. “John.” It comes out as more of a whine than you’d intended, but then again, you are in legitimate reproductive distress. “John, I need—”

“It’s alright, Karkat, come here.” While Dave’s suddenly become fascinated with how the sheets feel against his back as he rubs against them, John retreats from you, sitting with his back against the headboard. “Right here,” he says, and pats at his lap, close to where the lump in his pants is.

You scramble there embarrassingly fast, mashing your face against John’s like he’s the only thing that’ll keep you breathing. It might even be literal at this point; the more you kiss him, the more your ragged gasps even out to deep, over-oxygenated rushes to the thinkpan. You helpfully straddle his hips and your nook just coincidentally, you swear, lands straight over the fly of his jeans. You don’t mean to be such a desperate little slut about it; you just start grinding into him on instinct, like it’ll get him inside you faster if you do. “Egbert, I will shred your jeans and snap your bulge off at the hinge and shove it in myself if you don’t put it in me in the next thirty seconds.”

“Hey, shh, I’m getting there, just be patient.” Be patient, he says, like you could control the taste of your pulse metallic-bright on the tip of your tongue, like you could stop his pheromones from clogging your sniffnodes. To his credit, he does start getting there. His hands fascinate you as they work on his button, his zip—shoving his pants down around his hips, and his underwear goes with. You hold yourself away from his body, ambient air nipping at the sodden ripples of your nook, and he kicks off the offending articles of clothing. Finally. Everyone is naked. How did that take so long.

John takes his dick in hand, gives it a few hello-sailor fluffs, and holds it vertical. All he has to do is cock an eyebrow at you and you’re on it like honey on a hot biscuit.

The first time you did this, you think you might have given John an aneurysm. Because, as you later realized, John is biologically impossible. Not just that he’s unfairly handsome, but he was blessed by the phallus fairy, too. Ten girthy inches of blessing. All of it crammed into your nook after a swift, slick slide. Because you’re made for this, made to take it even when other orifices can’t. Before he met you, John was a card-carrying member of the ‘my dick won’t fit into a fuckhole’ club.

When you do things like this, it makes him find God a little bit. Which is convenient, because it’s you. You are his god. And he makes you feel like it in these moments, mouth and hands moving over you in a way that bypasses reverence and goes straight to worship. You clench the squish of your nook around him and he closes his eyes, eyebrows quirking together, mouth half-open. He looks so tender in these moments that it’s hard to forget why you love him, pity him, hate him, this much.

His hands, strong and capable, close around your hips. He moves you up, off, and then drops you, hitting home with the help of gravity. Shit, he feels like he’s in your fucking _throat_ like this, you just want to sit here and grind in tiny infuriating circles while you get your fill of him, emphasize that you’re the only one that can do this for him. “ _Shit_ , Karkat,” he whispers. His hair is so damp that it’s curling with sex-sweat. You push a lock behind his ear and keep riding him.

Languorous. The moment stretches out sticky-sweet like taffy. You idly wonder if Dave’s so firmly in subspace that he’s subconsciously fucking with everyone’s perception of time, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter. John moves with you, hands roving, clutching at everything, mouth whispering words straight into your skin, sometimes biting them in if he wants them to stick. The lining of your nook clings to him with every drag and draw, holding him like it never wants to let him go. Every little dribble of his pre gets sucked up by your slurry-hungry genebladder, and no matter how much he gives you, it won’t get you there. “John, harder, John,” you hold him close, arms thrown around his shoulders, and jerk frantically against him, wanting him to get there faster.

He wants to stave it off. You can tell by the urgent twitch of him every time his cockhead kisses your seedflaps. “Hold on, not yet, hold on—” it shouldn’t be so fucking adorable that he doesn’t want to lose his cool in front of you.

“John,” comes out more tenderly than you intended. He looks at you—through crooked glasses, eyes wide and bewildered and enchanted. His lower lip is red from where he’s been biting at it, and his face is hot to the touch when you frame it with your hands. “It’s okay,” you tell him. It’s okay for him to let go. He’s taken care of you. He always takes care of you. Both of you, you and Dave, and he always puts himself last, but now, now you can let him take solace in you, he can let go and trust that you’ll be his acting captain while he loses his precious control.

“I’m—ah, I’m— _Karkat,_ ” and he pulls you down onto him urgently, squelching your nook against his pubes, as he comes. And you’re full, full to the brim, full of him, seedflaps drinking up all he has to offer. Not as much as your body wants, it won’t ever be, humans aren’t designed to fulfill troll capacity—but it’s enough. And it’s enough to know that it’s John’s, that he wanted to give it to you, he wanted you to have that, he wanted you to be pleasured and happy and he trusted you enough to crumble in front of you, knowing you’d help to put him back together.

And even while he’s cresting, he’s pulling you down with him, hand tangling with your bulge, fingers playing a delicate melody into the slippery silk-wet wrapping around, “fuck, John, _fuck_ ,” but this time it’s less from your bulge and more from your nook, drenching John’s dick with a surge of slurry that splatters into his lap and drips down both of yours’ thighs.

The two of you kiss, sloppy, more breath than lips, as Dave delicately curls and arches to your sides. John pulls you off completely, hands cupped around your grubscars, and even when he sets you back down he starts thumbing at them idly, just the way you like. It’s enough to keep you primed for more—because your genebladder is convinced that was just an appetizer, that was basically the equivalent of a particularly enthusiastic spurt of pre-mat from a troll, where’s the rest of it?

You realize that John’s playing with your piercings because you’re trapping all your tension right there, so hard that your grubscars are practically vibrating with it. You kiss him more frantically and he laughs, shoving you away playfully. No, that is the opposite of what you want, you want more and you want it right now. You realize, from somewhere further away, that your sudden spike in greed is from chemical interplay, hormone redoubling, but everything under your skin itches and you know of a surefire way to make it stop and it’s to finally express, one last time, just once, just one more. “Hnnnn,” comes out of you as insistently as if it were actually a word. You reach out for Dave, pet down his chest, and he keens, on the same level of non-verbal arousal as you are.

John lets out a tired, satisfied _heh_. “You two are insatiable.” He reaches over to run his hands through Dave’s hair and Dave vocalizes so urgently that you’re afraid he might orgasm even through his cockring.

He knew. He knew this would work the two of you up. “Dave,” you try to tell John, and it just makes Dave cry out again. You know exactly what you want to articulate, but even Alternian is slipping away from your tongue, that’s how hungry your core is for something you can’t quite say. “Spill?” The only English word that makes remote sense, and you can’t even quite say it the way you want, the question-lilt at the end barely there, a desperate whimper.

Dave’s rubbing the soles of his feet against the sheets, again and again and again, drawing his knees up and then pushing his feet away—it has to be shifting the plug in him, too, your slurry sloshing in him, he’s keying himself up deliberately, showing he can edge himself even without anyone helping. He’s so good. You’ll have to remember to tell him later, when words work.

John must think your inarticulateness is cute or something, because he hugs you around the waist, holds you close. You can feel his chest against yours, jostling together with every breath, and it’s as comforting as it is mildly arousing. John noses against your face, nuzzling into you, brushing his lips against your cheekbone until his mouth is at your ear. “You want to ride him, too?” The distraught, broken noise that creaks up from your bones is downright feral. “Want him to fill you like I did?” You clutch at John’s shoulders so hard you start pricking ten perfect punctures into his deltoids. “Want to milk it ‘til he’s dry?” You’re going to shake to pieces. “Want to bring him home?” Every time you nod, your forehead butts against the headboard; you’re going to knock one of your horns off if you keep agreeing this vehemently.

It looks like Dave’s whole body is straining to hear the salacious words John’s dropping in your ear. Every word is G-rated, but the implications have you tingling all over; you’ll never get over his voice. John pulls back, kisses you, then turns to assess Dave’s situation. He’s a fucking mess, skin sweat-slick, dick choked a delicate shade of red, fingers curled in so hard even his white knuckles have white knuckles. The cadence of his breathing is hard to measure; every breath is desperate, a heave of his chest that only reminds him of the caress of air against his insides. He’s nothing but a puddle of want, deconstructed to his component parts, and you love him to pieces in all his pieces.

“Okay, here, we’ll,” John says, and starts moving you. Your shaky-faun legs aren’t helping; another drip of slurry ices down the hollow of your thighs. But then John gets you with a knee on either side of Dave’s ribs, holding him steady. Your nook pins his cock flush with his body and he sucks in a breath that’s half-sob. “Up,” and it’s the most you can do to follow John’s orders, holding yourself away while he arranges everything to his liking. The head of Dave’s dick is just at your entrance, but John hasn’t said, you don’t know if you can, your legs are trembling with effort and you think you might spill just from the anticipation at this point. Even Dave seems about to lose it, stabbing up with his hips so vehemently that John has to put a hand on his trail to pin his body to the bed. “Now,” he tells you, and reaches behind.

You let the tension out of your legs. The rest of it follows as you swallow Dave as easily as you took John. Your nook forms itself to him, clutching at him even as you pull away so you can ride him properly instead of rutting in pathetic starts and stops. Every nudge of his dick against your seedflaps just reminds your genebladder that it isn’t half-full, it’s half- _empty_ , still hungry and wanting to devour everything it can. Dave’s so slick your nook lining slurps up his pre, fuck, you’re close and you’ve hardly done anything, you can wait, you’re going to wait, damn it—

Dave howls and jerks up, pulling at his cuffs so hard his shoulders nearly dislocate. You want to ask why but can’t find the wherewithal; John tells you anyway, just as wordless as your question, slapping the plug down on Dave’s chest. There are schlicking sounds, louder than just you bouncing in Dave’s lap—John’s got his fingers in him again, playing him like a goddamn instrument, and Dave’s perfectly in tune, singing for him wonderfully as his heartbeat surges through you. Every time you slot your hips against his, the ripples of your nook bump up against leather: he wants to, he can’t, you want to, you won’t, neither of you have permission, both of you straining hard to get closer, to get away.

“Close?” The innocent reminder has you prickling all over, primed to blow, and your needy moan is in perfect harmony with Dave’s. “Just a little more,” John pants out, reaching under you—flicking the snap of the leather band, oh, holy fuck, then, “now,” something you barely hear under the rush of your own breath, your own heartbeat, ringing in your ears.

Dave slams into you so hard his bony hips bruise you, taking as much of you as you have to offer, and finally, _finally_ comes, something between pain and relief written on his face. Yes, that, _fuck yes_ , that’s what you wanted, your genebladder scorches alive with twice the material and it sparks something in you and that’s it, you drench him with the last of what you have to give, turning yourself inside-out and leaving nothing in reserve.

Things go a little fuzzy after that. John probably helps you off of Dave, because you end up on your back, Dave bracing you at your side as best he can, while John works you open and the contents of your genebladder dribble out around his fingers. You are completely empty. Empty of hunger, empty of urgency, empty of thought. Empty and not bereft, how could you be, surrounded by these two you adore most in the world, perception blurred at the edges and nothing but catching your breath and taming your racing heartbeat.

Dave’s arms circle around you, pull you close. John must have uncuffed him while you blinked out for a few minutes. Dave’s cuddling involves running the flats of his teeth absentmindedly across your scapulas, nibbling at your back and licking the salt from it. Your skin is still wet. Probably from the washcloth John’s trying to use. After a few passes, he pulls back and looks at it and starts laughing, flinging it away as a lost cause.

Another blink, irrelevant, as the three of you get dumped in the bath in John’s ensuite. Hot water relaxing into your muscles. Poking and prodding at all of Dave’s bruises. Coming back to yourself slowly, flexing the pins and needles from your prongtips. Dave’s still dazed, not saying much but going along with how you and John direct him. You wash his hair without being prompted, just because you know he likes it when he gets head massages. The happy hums—from both him and John—mean you did something right.

Toweling off, helping Dave when he’s too clumsy to do it for himself. Warm words from John, nodding along, sound of assent from you. Dave’s still drifting. Must have done really good tonight, then, if he’s dropped anchor and is still so far out to sea.

You’re wrapping Dave in a bathrobe, trying to pull on flannel pants yourself for basic decency, when John asks what you want to watch. “Pride and Prejudice.” Your voice comes out all wrong, hoarse and gravelly from your parched throat. “Water?”

“Got it.” John’s back in old basketball shorts and a grotty tee from some Habitat for Humanity project back in college. He absconds, and it’s up to you to get you and Dave to the living room with a minimum of stubbed toes.

You can words again, at least. Dave’s coming back online in fits and starts. “Hey.” He smiles at that—smirks, really. “You did good,” you tell him, and kiss him gently. His mouth forms to yours, sweet and simple, and you have to remind yourself to pull away before you start walking again.

By the time you get to the living room, the movie is already queued and there’s beverages waiting for you on the coffee table. “No popcorn?”

“If you want some, you can make it,” John tells you.

Little shit. He always wants popcorn but never wants to make it. You dump Dave on him—aha, that was his plan all along. He lets Dave laze over half the couch, but keeps Dave’s head in his lap, tracing the shell of his ear. You watch them and can’t tell whether you’re envious or just happy. Because it’s not just the two of them—it’s you, it’s that you get to see this, it’s that you’re included in this, every second of every day, the three of you perfect counterweights to each other. You get caught up in it so long you almost let your movie snacks burn.

The lights are out in the living room, but when John starts the film, it’s not movie-theatre loud. Perfectly ambient piano music drifts through the room. You set your popcorn down on the table, sit down next to John on the side where Dave doesn’t have a monopoly, and snuggle close, pressing into his side. John’s arm wraps easily around you. You reach down to run your fingers through Dave’s drying hair.

You’re exhausted, pleasantly tired. The affairs of the human Bennets have always been soothing for you, though—especially since John worked on the score, spending long nights in the studio and working himself to the bone to produce something he was proud of. You rehydrate, and stuff your face, and John gets Dave to drink some water. John gets up to use the bathroom and you sort of fall over into his space, you and Dave mashed into each other but too lazy-contented to move; when he comes back he practically has to separate the two of you with a crowbar.

It’s not until halfway through the movie, right after an emotional Elizabeth rejects Mr. Darcy’s first proposal, that Dave seems to perk up. His blinking looks different. “The fuck are we watching?” he croaks.

“Pride and Prejudice,” John says. Dave makes a snorting noise and burrows his face into John’s thigh. “Welcome back, man.”

“Congratulations,” Dave deadpans, “you got me to shut up for two hours straight.” He stretches, bones creaking, joints cracking; it sounds hideous, but you know he always feels better after he resettles in his own skin. “Jesus, John, that was fuckin’ inspired.”

John shrugs. “I try.” His hand pets down Dave’s side, terrycloth-soft, to the rubbed-raw circles around his wrists. “Does this hurt? I can get you something.”

“Not right now.” Dave slumps further across John’s lap, almost like a disgruntled cat in his determination that John stay right where he is. And they call you the automobile feline. Dave even butts his head against your hand, just in case you were going to take away your head scritches. “I’ll do it later.”

“No, I’ll do it,” John insists.

“No, me,” you butt in, half in mockery. The other half of you is genuinely sorry. It was you who brought the cuffs, after all, so you feel responsible. You feel responsible for a lot of things, in general, most of which you probably shouldn’t, but this is one case where the harm wouldn’t have happened if you’d have made a different choice. “And you might, uh. Want to check your.” You gesture at your own throat, closing your hand around it. “Before you go out in public.”

Dave flops around so he’s on his back. You can see his face better this way. If only he would go without his shades more often—or maybe it’s a good thing that there’s always something in the way of his eyes, they’re amazing to stare at and you feel like you might get lost if you look long enough. “That bad, huh?”

“You bruise easy.” John still reaches down and thumbs at one of the hickeys. One of yours, you think. “I thought you liked them?”

“I do, but concealer is a bitch.”

“Maybe you could stop being such a fucking peacock about it,” you grouse. You’re proud of those marks, and you want everyone to see that Dave belongs to someone. To you, to John. To this.

Dave reaches out in the vague direction of your head and ends up clumsily doofing one of your horns. “You’re just jealous that you don’t have any. Hey, hey Egbert, what if—”

“Not tonight, honey, I have a migraine,” John interrupts him. “But is that, uh. Karkat?”

Something you want, you infer. “I—yeah, that could. Be a thing.” It’s hard to talk about this stuff. All the intrusive thoughts come back, all the memories of a dead society that make you want to drop everything and run far away and live out the rest of your life in miserable solitude.

“Maybe next time,” John muses out loud, and you relax a little. Negotiating, talking, that’s hard. Just _doing_ (being done) is so much easier. “Dave, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Sure.”

“I mean, you were pretty far gone.”

“Pretty sure that was your fault.” Dave’s horn doof has turned into an outright grope. It feels like sodapop bubbles, except everywhere. “Shut up, John. Seriously. I can hear you thinking. It’s so unattractive, when you go _durr durr_ every five seconds and second-guess everything you’ve ever done. I liked it, okay? I didn’t even think you remembered what I said, but you took it. You took it and you fucking ran with it. Right next to Forrest Gump and the Chariots of Fire guy.”

You clap a hand over Dave’s mouth. “Your metaphor license has been officially revoked.”

“Mn thnn, ooh—phtthhtthtphhtht—and then, you roped Vantas into it—”

“To be fair,” you point out, wiping Dave’s drool on his cheek, “I was already there.”

“Shut up.” Dave, in turn, wipes his face on John’s shorts. “I just—guys, I’d never—I wanted to, for a long time, but I never—I mean, that was—fuck, what are feelings, we just don’t know.”

John leans down, lays a kiss on Dave’s forehead. Dave’s blushing. Actual for real embarrassed flush all over his face. “Love you too, dickhead.”

And then it goes quiet. Dave takes his hand back from your horn. John absently rubs along your bare back, finding knots, prodding at them with his thumb. “You know we love you,” he says quietly, “right, Karkat?”

“I—” Not really. You don’t think you’ll ever hear it enough.

“Just because _Dave_ can’t say it doesn’t mean _I’m_ that emotionally retarded.” You’re about to say something when John corrects himself: “Well, not anymore. But—Karkat, you were amazing, okay? And you did everything I asked you to, when I asked you to do it. You took a spanking when you hadn’t even done anything wrong—that was amazing, you did so good. And with Dave, you—just you two, I can’t, it was… I can’t even explain.”

He gets that third wheel feeling too. Because he was late, because he missed out. The same one you get around the two of them. And you know Dave looks at you and John and sees something he can never be a part of, that inherent friendleaderfriend motivational streak ten miles wide. But you all three need each other, and it wouldn’t be the same if one of you were gone. “Love you,” you admit. Under your breath. In Alternian. If you say it too loud you’re afraid this moment will shatter. But it’s enough that you know you said it.

You’re needed here. Wanted. You have a job. A role to play. Right now that role is stuffing Dave’s ears full of popcorn and crying at Bingley’s proposal and wiping your eyes when John passes you a tissue. John needs you to follow, and Dave needs you to lead. And no one complains when you suggest Star Trek: Into Darkness as your next movie.


End file.
